Europe :: England :: London

EVENT: Kick-Off Party (Weekend), Saturday, the 1st of November, 2pm

darklily — Tue, 7 Oct 2008 10:45:00 -0700

Event: The Kick-Off Party (Weekend Edition)
Date: Saturday, the 1st of November
Start Time: 2pm
End Time: Probably around six-ish

Venue: The Round Table, St. Martin's Court, Leicester Square (see map).
We'll be aiming to occupy the upstairs room.
The pub serves food (of variable but recently okay quality), and so far has had no problems with having under-18s upstairs.

Things To Bring: Pens and paper are always useful. We also encourage cuddly mascots (as you can tell from this photo taken at last year's kick-off!).
Oh, and if you can come up with a good answer to the question 'so, what is your novel about?', it will serve you well. :)

Things To Take Away: This year's shipment of official NaNo goodies has made it across the Atlantic in record time, so there will be free stickers for all!
(Please remember to take your cuddly toys home with you, too!)

R.S.V.P.'ing: Is appreciated by me, but by no means binding or obligatory.

***

The next weekend meet after this one will be the Mid-Month Meet on the 15th of November. Mark your diaries!

Can't make meets on Saturdays? Fear not! By popular request, there will also be a weeknight kick-off on Wednesday the 29th of October. Details can be found here!
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Lily
Municipal Liaison for London, England

Europe :: England :: London

Another year, another 50k

Enzo — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 16:16:06 -0700

Got it all planned out? I know I haven't. But that doesn't matter. I'm looking forward to it this year, more than I have before. It'll be my third time, and hopefully my third win. Have done very little writing in recent months, so I'm hoping there's a whole load of backed-up words just waiting for Nov 1 (ever the optimist).

So, has anyone got a plot yet?
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Ben..
2008 - Copernicus Undone
2007 - Monument (winner!)
2006 - Some Solitude for a Social Species (winner!)

Europe :: England :: London

Writing Retreats in London

Charlington — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 03:11:26 -0700

I've just started running writing retreats in London, mostly to force myself to stop procrastinating (it's been surprisingly effective so far). I'm doing them at the weekends so they fit into normal life, and there are weekend or one-day options.

There's one this weekend and one the first weekend in November - look at http://www.urbanwritersretreat.co.uk. I was considering doing a NaNo special late in November when we're all way behind and panicking - would anyone be interested?

I was thinking I would maybe try to do a one day write-in and try to bring the cost right down by having more people in the space than I would normally. It's really productive working with other people and I think having lots of us in a room would be fun too.

Any thoughts?
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http://www.urbanwritersretreat.co.uk

Europe :: England :: London

Anyone for pies?

MissMouse — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 08:09:35 -0700

Hey folks, anyone up for some East London meet-ups again... back at the Camel in Bethnal Green perhaps? The pies were great and we even got some writing done!

Let me know if you're interested. For various self-serving reasons, I'd suggest Mondays....
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Why do I do this to myself? Because this year I might just win...

Europe :: England :: London

EVENT: Kick-Off Party (Weeknight), Wednesday 29th October, 7pm

darklily — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 18:31:59 -0700

Event: The Kick-Off Party (Weeknight Edition)
Date: Wednesday, the 29th of October
Start Time: 7pm

Venue: The Mad Hatter, Stamford Street, Waterloo (see map).

The pub serves pricey but decent food, including a good selection of pies.

Things To Bring: Pens, paper, cuddly mascots...

Things To Take Away: There will be free stickers! Hooray for early shipment of NaNo goodies!
(Please remember to take your cuddly toys home with you, too!)

R.S.V.P.'ing: Is appreciated by me, but by no means binding or obligatory.

***

Hope to see you there!
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Lily
Municipal Liaison for London, England

Europe :: England :: London

An increased challenge this year.

Andufus — Wed, 8 Oct 2008 11:34:04 -0700

So, this is my second year doing NaNoWriMo.
This year, it's going to be a lot harder.
No, I'm not increasing my word count goal.
I have french exchange students coming.
I'm in a play and the three full day rehersals and the two full day performances are happening.
I have coursework this year.
I am in a tap festival this year.
I'm screwed this year.
But, I HAVE A PLOT THIS YEAR.
Can anyone top this? :P
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----
2007 NaNoWriMo: The Great Elemental - WON!
2008: NaNoWriMo: The Kingdom of Kitsu - November is still to come :p

Europe :: England :: London

Word Wars?

darklily — Tue, 7 Oct 2008 13:45:19 -0700

We've been invited to take part in the UK Regional Word War.
I know a good few of you took part last year. For those of you who are new to word wars, the basic idea is that participants from two or more regions compete to have the highest average word count during November. (Obviously, you'll be given full instructions nearer the time!)

Would any of you be up for it?
Replying to this thread doesn't commit you to anything - I'm just trying to gauge interest.

I've also been emailed about potential word wars with New York City and Toronto. I'm still checking up on some details, but anyone interested in taking part in those, too?
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Lily
Municipal Liaison for London, England

Europe :: England :: London

London as a setting for your novel?

Laroux — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 08:09:14 -0700

I love London and everything I've ever written has been based in or set around London, last year I wrote a novel set in 1950's London high society; this year I've opted for a complete change of pace and opted for a dystopian novel, set in a chaotic, futuristic London ... so yeah, a bit different! London attracts me as it's such a vibrant, varied city that anyone could live there, anyone could carve a niche, a character could meet anyone and me placed in almost any situation, the drama and pace of the city makes for plenty of action and rich scenery, but equally can be transformed into a quiet, peaceful place by changing location from the City to Hyde Park - there's so much possibility!

Is anyone else using London as the setting for their novel? If so, how are you incorporating it into your novel and what elements of the city do you want to draw on?
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Europe :: England :: London

East London (Epping) Writers

kj_canuck — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 03:09:37 -0700

Hi all,
I was part of the Essex Region but it was a little out of the way for me and being as I am still in the M25 I thought that I might as well join the London group because it will be easier to meet up with people for whatever.
I was wondering if there are any writers in this region that are close to the Epping area and if so did you want to meet up and swap some ideas. I am in a right pickle because I have no idea at all what I am going to do... well I do have ideas, loads of ideas I just don't know if any of them are good enough to turn out 50k words.
So let me know if you are interested in meeting up. We don't have to go all the way to Epping, I am in Theydon Bois myself, but somewhere around that area would be awesome.
I am away this weekend :( But I was thinking next weekend would be a great chance to meet up with some people and see what's what's.
Looking forward to hearing from people.

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KJ x

Europe :: England :: London

kick-off party

rachnmi — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 13:28:37 -0700

What's up with the kick off party? any plans yet?
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Europe :: England :: London

West London (Ealing) Writers?

Rob08 — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 07:25:33 -0700

Hello,

I was wondering if there are any NaNo participants in the west London, particularly the Ealing/Perivale/Hanwell/Southall area?

If so would you be interested in the odd joint writing session?
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Europe :: England :: London

Million Monkeys

Denni — Mon, 6 Oct 2008 13:31:15 -0700

Writing gatherings and retreats are a great confidence boost. I hope to make it to at least a few (I don't live in London, but I'm close enough to commute occasionally).

On that note, let me point out that the Million Monkeys meet up every Monday evening (from about 17:30) at the Royal Festival Hall to write for a few hours. Pop in when you feel like it :)
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Europe :: England :: London

The game's afoot! - introducing myself here....

Mainframeguy — Mon, 6 Oct 2008 06:34:44 -0700

... rather then in Newbie section. I did make a post there on signing up, but that was before the board wipe so should be long gone.

Anyway - perhaps this should go in the bio and I may précis it there. Précis was never my strong point and I expect that to be a big aid to me in the challenge ahead! Of course not an aid in the readability or result of whatever I produce, but that, as they say, is another story (in more ways than one!).

I was alerted to sometihing kicking off by no less than 26 new emails, all seemed to originate here. I hope I have adjusted things to stop the email floodgates and may or may not move over to RSS at a time that seems right.

I have not partaken of NanoWriMo before. Nor have I undertaken any serious writing beyond the odd dabble with poetry. I have, however, recently begun a blog. The two are not disconnected, my plan is that I may blog my nanowrimo progress and hopefully the two can interleave and live alongside one another happily. Be interested to hear from any other bloggers who also do this - linking back may be on the cards no doubt..

Not sure what more to say... Oh yes, another factor in my undertaking is that I have been out of work for some 18 odd months now. Prior to that I was a software engineer;. Despite the geeky background I consider myself highly literate. In that respect I belong to a book group and it was interesting that for our last book (Cloth Girl) the author, Marilyn Heward Mills, attended the library. I particularly enjoyed her description of the writing process for her personally, which entailed a lot of gestation and thinking about the characters and what they would do in order to animate them. She said that she knew it was coming together when she would dream of the characters and they had a life of their own. She also said that key to the process was allotting a time daily which was for the writing process and during that time there may be five thousand words and there may be fifty - but it was all valuable and had to be dedicated - often she would be listening to music or talking to herself, but the thing was she was progressing that animation and character development. She made sense in a lot of her description - though I suspect that for nanowrimo a fifty word day is a slight disaster!

I have been working hard on my blog, prorbably more the set-up and programming than the content and I shall have to watch that does not become a displacement activity come November! I have a very vague idea of trying to make the writing interleave wit the blog so that what is written there could be incorporated - making no keystroke a wasted one!

I am contemplating the very geeky idea of linking to project dolphin, which can count my keystrokes, for the duration of nanowrimo... this would mean I could in theory work out the percentage of keystrokes that were "active" and "harvested" the nanowrimo output! That tells you a lot about me I guess, but honestly I may not do that and I am aware it is a little anal.

I am off to mention this on nablopomo now - wondering if they will make this their subject for November which would suit me very nicely!

Sorry to rattle on - I shall try to work out how to subscribe to this topic alone so that I can say Hi to any others in my region, especially bloggers.

I'll admit I am very nervous, but I expect that is a commonplace. In my case it is because when I registered I heard that people were working on plot development and character outlines and the like - and I have done NONE of that. The only thing I have is that vague idea - which only germinated as I wrote this!

Cheers for now - no idea how or if I shall precis this! If any kind reader wants to practice and make it into bio length I'll reward them with fullsome praise and sincere thanks! And an offer of a half hours proofreading for free!
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my blog - didactic.me